Daniel Pinchbeck On Planetary Initiation

Daniel Pinchbeck’s Nov. 3, 2012 speech given at the La Calaca Festival TedX in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico is transcribed at Reality Sandwich:

Last week I was in New York City, my home, for Hurricane Sandy. At 7 pm that night, I walked to my corner and saw the floodwaters rising toward my block. I hurried home, grabbed a few things, and set out for a friend’s house on higher ground. As I was hurrying away, I heard muffled explosions and saw eerie lights in the sky. It was the Con Edison plant blowing up.

Sandy supports what I have been writing and saying for years about this time as one of intense transformation and planetary initiation. I wrote a book and made a ﬁlm about the Mayan calendar and the year 2012. I believe that we are seeing the fulﬁllment of prophecy — based on the precise understanding of cosmic cycles held by the ancient cultures of MesoAmerica — in the transformation of planetary culture and consciousness. At the end of the process, we will either have transformed as a species and reached a new level of consciousness, or we will be on our way toward extinction. The choice is ours to make.

In tribal cultures, initiation is the necessary ordeal that turns adolescents into adults through accessing extrasensory perception, visionary states, and by transcending or subduing the ego. Through this process, the initiate becomes a full-fledged member of the tribe and takes responsibility for it.

As we undergo our planetary initiation, we are going to transcend individual ego and local boundaries to identify ourselves with humanity as a whole, becoming one global tribe. We are on the cusp of realizing ourselves as one species organism, in symbiotic relationship with the planetary ecology as a whole. Once we make this leap, we will share resources equitably, adopt cradle to cradle and no waste manufacturing practices, and shift from competition to cooperation as our basic paradigm. We will go from acting like a parasite or a virus on the earth to becoming the earth’s immune system…

Pinchbeck is making a whole lot of definitive statements which look a lot to me like wishful thinking. I’d like to see this happen, too. But the people who control this culture have a vested interest in not only preserving, but exacerbating the differences between us, with a goal of control of ALL the world’s income and assets to be exploited for their own personal short-term advantage. So where’s the evidence that this spiritual awakening is taking place? What’s going on in whatever echo chamber aka reality tunnel he’s in may not have much to do with the real world. At the moment, the Jason Diamond “Collapse” scenario where the elite leads its civilization into the crapper and gets flushed down with the people they mislead seems more likely than any future any sane person wants to live in.

The whole TED thing (note that the article is based on a TEDx presentation) is essentially a salon where the wealthy can hang out with certified “great thinkers” and share “great thoughts” acceptable to the wealthy and the powerful with the ‘intellectual’ masses. Recently, a TED talk got pulled because “great thoughts” questioning the current distribution of wealth and powerful weren’t acceptable to the real customers. Not all of it is bad, but I recommend scanning the transcripts because there rarely is enough real info in them to be worth 10 minutes of time.

TED is just a subset of the futurist movement where we’re invited to focus on the wonders of future science and technology, but who are the men behind the curtain who pay to promote it, and who will also decide what we will get and who will be able to afford it ? (hint: lots of Silicon Valley and in general, 0.001% money involved here)

The whole Mayan calendar thing is a gross misunderstanding, what is commonly believed to be the Mayan calendar is an abridged version, the full version was recently found and it goes many thousands of years past 2012. There was a recent post on this site stating that the descendants of the Mayans are complaining about the “2012 end of the world” crap. So why is this myth even considered useful among future-oriented thinkers?

Roark

I appreciate much of Pinchbeck’s work. I think he is helping carry the mantle that Terrence McKenna had, but 2012 has been proven to be poppycock. Of course, it doesn’t really matter because NOW is the time for transformation and a green-libertarian society that embraces shamanism, entheogens, environmental capitalism, and novelty.

alizardx

Props for knowing who Terrence McKenna was. Before talking about a “green-libertarian” society, better find out who finances the Libertarian movement, you probably already know names, look them up on www,opensecrets,org . This is a good idea for anybody in a non-mainstream social / political movement with billionaire money behind it – find out what kind of future these people REALLY want to see from their campaign donations.

Roark

I am more of an objectivist than a libertarian. Yet, I also support a clean/healthy planet and responsible entheogenic use. In other words a reason pursuing – entheogenic using – freedom loving – environmentalist.

alizardx

small-L libertarianism not so bad, IMO, big-L Libertarianism GOP-lite for hipsters embarrassed by GOP right-centrist marketing as in openly pandering to bigots, interested in short-term cash flow by avoiding payment for government services except for the ones they personally use or approve of. It’s for people who don’t take the idea that they will live in the future they help create seriously. Ironic when this group includes “futurists”, of course.

I remember Robert Anton Wilson making fun of big-L Libertarianism.

charlieprimero

People love THE APOCALYPSE because your credit card debt goes away and you don’t have to show up at your boring-azz job on Monday.

Pinchbeck sells:

2012 / Global Awakening:
Features Native American “wisdom” that is “authentic” because it’s non-Christian and non-European. It’s vague enough to mold into whatever you want. Unappreciated ‘Cultural Creatives’ get rewarded, while evil financial bullies and polluters get the smack-down. Plus, you get to enjoy all the psychedelic drugs you want! December 21st, 2012

Other versions:

Warrior Jesus:
Yeshua returns and puts the smack-down on evil perverts and atheists. The Ignorant rot in fiery Hell. The Enlightened go to Heaven. Could happen any minute.

Financial Collapse:
Lazy welfare cheats starve while Banksters get hung. Frugal folk who eat at home, repair their own cars, and wear unfashionable clothes get to shoot the Grasshoppers who didn’t prepare. Could happen any day.

Kurzwell’s Transhuman Singularity:
Science nerds oversee armies of Terminator drones who destroy the fundigelical football players who picked on them in high school and live forever in their new titanium avatars. Big Bang Theory television show becomes a new channel. They command society from atop Committees of Science. Moore’s Law says soon.

My Fav:
When the Zombie Outbreak occurs I get to take over Brad Pitt’s house and inherit his motorcycles. The number of stupid people I’m forced to deal with everyday is reduced by 99%.

Fingers Crossed!

alizardx

I see every one of your scenarios with the possible exception of the last one as a dieoff scenario driven by short-term focused bad decision-making by the transnational elite that runs human civilization, Odd to think of a situation where “Zombie Apocalypse” may be the best available future.

Storms like that have been hitting places around the world for years. One hits New York and it heralds intense transformation and planetary initiation. Of course it does…just like there were no terrorists before 9/11.